“So you’d give me less of a chance?”

“I don’t think I could get past the idea of you with anyone else now that you’ve been mine.” Which filled her with guilt. “You think you could just write it off if I slept with someone else?”

He rolled on top of her. “But you could with him?”

“He was different. I was different. I couldn’t get the image out of my head. You’re mine, Ezra. And if you can’t promise that you won’t be fucking other people, we can’t be together. And if I slept with someone else? Hmm?”

He kissed her so hard she forgot what they’d been talking about for a few minutes.

“You’re mine, Tuesday. I don’t share. Neither do I have any inclination to seek any other bed but the one I’m in right now.”

It had been the most definitive declaration he’d ever given her. He branded her with it.

Claimed her.

He kissed her again. Slow. Teasing. “I’m a shitty bet—you know that, right?”

She snorted. “Stop. Are you hinting that you need a compliment? Do you need me to say how much I think about you on a daily basis?”

“Yes. I do.”

“I think about you all day long. I think about you in the morning when I wake up. I’m in bed and you’re not there. I wonder what you’re doing. Think about you in your boxer shorts as you move around your house. You’re talking to the cats because they’re bouncing off the walls that you’re finally awake and paying attention to them after daring to be unconscious for eight hours. Later, as I get to work, I think about you on horseback. You look really good in the saddle. All super at ease on a giant animal you ride over your lands. In my fantasies I might Viking you up a little, but just go with me here.”

He laughed. “A Viking?”

“Yes. You’re so big and brawny. And you definitely know your pillaging and conquering.”

He leaned down to nip her bottom lip.

“Sorry, that Viking thing was a total tangent. Maybe we can revisit it at some point in the future. Like say, while you’re dressed as a Viking. We can work out the details later on.”

“Roger that. Will you dress as a wench?”

God, he made her happy. Just so full of happy it felt as if she might burst. “Is that your thing?”

“I might have entertained the vision of you in a white shirt, shoulders bared, cleavage high, serving me things. Maybe.”

She laughed, hugging him.

“What did you do? Before me?” he asked.

She could have played coy and asked him what he meant. But she knew. “When Eric died I sort of...I don’t know...it was like parts of me froze or withered away. It took me three years before I could even entertain the idea of having sex again. It came back eventually.”

She loved sex and once that need had come back, she’d eventually allowed it into her life. So casual dating to get to decent sex for a few weeks before she broke things off and moved on. Four or six months later she’d do it again.

“Mainly I’d see someone for a few weeks. We’d meet in hotels, have sex. I’d shower at my gym and go home. After a while it petered out and we both moved on. I never fucked in anyone’s house. I never learned their kids’ names or what their favorite color was. It took nearly five years before I could consider having real feelings for anyone again.”

That hung between them awhile.

Then he brushed his lips over hers. Over each one of her closed eyelids.

“Mmm. Do you know what it does to me that you respond so openly and honestly?” He kissed along her jaw. “You tear me apart just by being you.”

There was something magical about that moment. So much energy had built up. All the what-could-be hung in the air. But like every important moment, it could go wrong, too, and she knew they both understood that.

“I do?”

“You really do.”

“What did you do? Before I came along? Wait. I’m not sure I actually want to know.”

“Before you, I waited until I needed to fuck or I’d blow up and then I’d go to see a woman I knew well enough to fuck and didn’t care that I was the Ezra Hurley. But when I kissed you that first time you dug in. Your taste shoved out everything else.

“There was you. All lush curves and strong lines. I wanted a taste and then you kissed me back and there was nothing else I wanted.”

She held on tight, breathing him in. “Thank goodness. Other than the woman in Portland, even before the drugs you never had anyone?”

“I never had the time. And then I don’t think I ever met the right person. Or maybe I wasn’t the right person. Then I was definitely not the right person. Since then I’ve spent my time trying to get everything else in my life back on track.”

Tuesday understood that. “Which seems pretty fair when you think about it. The only way I could keep going each day was to break stuff into small parts. Take that piece, deal with it and move to the next thing. Sometimes it was just brushing my teeth. But you get over it. You realize scar tissue is tough and it hurts a little less as the days and weeks and months go by.”

* * *

WHAT IF YOU had to look at your mistakes every day? What if he felt like he’d done so much harm to his family through his addiction that he’d never get past it?

It haunted him.

And maybe, he felt he deserved to be haunted.

It stood between them and he honestly didn’t feel like he could truly open himself up until he learned how to live with it or how to get around it.